


a little while

by ZephyrEden



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, KH3 spoilers, this is bad and i'm extremely emotional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-07
Updated: 2019-02-07
Packaged: 2019-10-24 00:39:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17694275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZephyrEden/pseuds/ZephyrEden
Summary: the night before the war, Sora reflects on some things. every thought leaves a lump in his throat.





	a little while

Sora has spent two days on the island since he left for the Mark of Mastery exam. The first was when he coincidentally ended up here, entering the Realm of Darkness and bringing Aqua back to the beaches here in the Realm of Light. The second was now, an evening spent in unspoken anxiety, a night that they’ll spend trying not to think about the upcoming battle. So really, he hasn’t even spent two days, he’s just gotten to visit on two different occasions.

He thinks maybe he should use this one to talk to his parents. It’s not good-bye, it’s just… it’s not good-bye, he swears.

He swallows hard and hops off the trunk of the paopu tree, the fruit falling off his lap and landing on the ground. He doesn’t pay it any mind and neither does Kairi, her gaze focused unwaveringly on the sunset ahead.

She doesn’t say anything when he walks away, doesn’t turn around when he hops off the bridge to the ground below, and he’s thankful for it. He sees the cluster of palms and walks towards them, neck craning back to look up at them. He never realized how much taller they could grow. In his absence, they’ve reached a height he could never have scaled when he was fourteen, his whole world still these tiny islands trapped within an endless sea.

With a deep breath, he starts to climb one of the palms, fingers scraping against the textured surface of the trunk as he ascends.

“What are you doing?” Riku asks, finally leaving his place of isolation on the shore when he takes notice of Sora.

Sora doesn’t answer. The answer is he wants to forget. Forget about light and darkness, about keyblades and wars, about the idea of even _needing_ to share a paopu. He’s glad she didn’t make him take a bite; he’s not sure his anxiously churning stomach would be able to handle it.

“Sora?”

He reaches the top to find a nest of seagull eggs. He remembers, once upon a time, when they would collect these. He remembers, ages ago, when he grabbed them for supplies for a journey across the sea on a raft.

They never would have survived.

He doesn’t want to admit how naïve they were then. He wants to go back to before he knew they were.

He drops to the ground, wiping the dirt from the tree on his pants. “Nothing much,” he finally answers. “Just… remembering how things used to be.”

Riku looks at him in silence for a moment before swallowing, averting his eyes to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

Sora’s heard this apology often. The one where Riku’s voice is forced so it won’t waver and break, the one filled with an amount of shame for starting this. Not that Sora can blame him. He thinks that, if he was in Riku’s shoes, he would eventually have done the same thing. It’s not like it was only Riku’s own power that opened the door. It’s only now that they know there was someone waiting here, waiting for years to grab someone, feed into them until they opened it.

“I guess, even back then, things weren’t as simple for you, huh?” Sora wonders aloud, voice low so that Kairi won’t hear him from the paopu tree. He thinks it’s something Riku would rather talk about alone, if he wants to say anything at all.

Riku snorts but there’s no laughter to it like there usually is. He turns, looking towards the ocean and despite Sora being able to see his profile, the sunset obscures his expression. “It was always easy being with you guys. Until it wasn’t.”

Sora thinks he can get that despite not really understanding at all.

“Before that, though,” Riku continues, looking back to Sora, “those simpler times, I miss them too.”

Sora’s expression falters and falls, a sigh forcing its way past his lips. “Do you think we’ll ever get those back?”

A corner of Riku’s lips lift, a strange expression in his eyes. “Do you want the truth?”

Sora isn’t sure he does. He know Riku will give it to him anyways.

With only slight hesitation, Riku places a firm and comforting hand on Sora’s shoulder, making Sora look up at him. “We were always bound to grow up some time. This island isn’t Neverland. We never would have been able to stay kids forever.”

Sora knows it’s true but it doesn’t stop the feeling of his throat closing up, of the burning behind his eyes.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the time we have, though,” Riku says softly, squeezing Sora’s shoulder. “No harm in pretending for a little while.”

Sora scrubs at his eyes with his glove just to make sure there’s no wetness there. “What do you mean?”

“Come on.” Riku nods up to the bridge and his hand slips down from Sora’s shoulder to his wrist, only holding on until Sora starts to follow. They head up to the bridge and across it, Kairi not moving at the sound. He already knows she’s on the same page.

Sora hops back up on the trunk of the tree and Riku crosses his arms as he leans against it, all three of them focused straight ahead.

If he closes his eyes, Sora can hear the sound of giggling laughter, the sound of three young children playing in the wake and splashing water at each other. If he closes his eyes, he can remember days spent sleeping on beach, of collecting seashells and climbing trees, of scraping drawings onto the walls of the Secret Place with rocks. If he closes his eyes, he can feel a wooden sword in his hand, the feeling of reverberations traveling through his limbs with each clash against another sword, a staff, sometimes a jump rope or ball. If he closes his eyes, he can see a half-finished raft and, if he concentrates hard enough, he can reach the faint memory of a meteor shower, a pain in his chest, and strangers he can’t quite recall on the island.

So he doesn’t close his eyes. He forces himself not blink, his eyes watering as he faces the brilliant sunset with his best friends on either side. And if he doesn’t close his eyes, for a moment it feels like they’re kids again, watching the sunset in a world that only consists of tiny islands trapped within an endless sea.

**Author's Note:**

> [gold coast//grouplove](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S9vktUZ8wE) | [don't say oh well//grouplove](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfxTKCGSvQE)
> 
> [twitter](http://twitter.com/deepseasalt_) | [tumblr](http://deepseasalt.tumblr.com) | [carrd](http://zephyreden.carrd.co)


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